


Come Back for Me

by OriginalImpossibleSouffleGirl



Category: Sleepy Hollow (TV)
Genre: Angst, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-23
Updated: 2014-01-23
Packaged: 2018-01-09 17:58:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 484
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1149091
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OriginalImpossibleSouffleGirl/pseuds/OriginalImpossibleSouffleGirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What thoughts does the mind summon when hope is gone?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Come Back for Me

 

His voice is hoarse now. The first hours were filled with yelling; first “Jeremy!” then “Katrina!” then, as hope finally drained away, “Abbie.”  
  
Just her name whispered over and over until there was no force behind the sound, no hope of being heard.  
  
Even now, his heart slows in the rhythm of her name--Ab-bie. Ab-bie.  
  
“Forgive me,” the ghost of his voice says, and the branches tighten once more until he loses consciousness.  
                              

 

           

 When he wakes, there is a blessed moment of amnesia. Such a strange dream he’d had; he would tell the lieutenant when he--oh.

His face crumples as the blasted memories return. He’d made the wrong choice, dear God, he _had_ , and this was his punishment.

Even as he thinks it, he chides himself. The lieutena--no. _Abbie_. Abbie had insisted, and she’d chosen what she believed was the greater good. He could not-- _would not_ \--take that away from her. But damn it all, for a second he thought her eyes begged something else of him...  God forgive him, but he wanted to stay.

He’d almost forgotten his beloved wife, cad that he was, and Abbie’s sacrifice almost made no sense. But then he saw Katrina’s questioning eyes above Abbie’s head and he couldn’t continue wallowing in his folly.

He gives a dry, croaking chuckle.

Damned if he was, and damned if he wasn’t.

He struggles again, testing his bonds. They don’t even bother to tighten this time. It seems his sins are enough to imprison him now.

“Oh, Miss Mills. My kingdom for one of your scoldings.” His voice is like gravel and broken glass in his throat.

He chuckles again, a little wildly this time.

_I choose to forge my fate with you._

Blasted fool.

 

                                                      

He is delirious now. His mind conjuring temptations more convincing still than Purgatory.

Being present at the birth of his child... Raising Jeremy as his father raised him... Encouraging free thought and compassion, but above all, integrity... Katrina. Katrina bearing another child; a girl with dark hair and brown eyes like the coffee beans sent back from the colonies…

Not Katrina. Abbie.

The cabin in the woods.

Building a fire and telling stories of home.

Her laugh. Her gaze.

_You_ will _come back for me. That I know._

He cries now.

Abbie.

Ab-bie.

Ab-bie.

                                                    

 

Even in this state, he knows that praying for death may doom her to the same. So he doesn’t. No, by God, she’ll live and succeed where he failed.

                                            

 

He knows her name even after he’s half-forgotten his.

His lips form the syllables, but he can no longer make the sounds.

_There’s always another way._

Come for me, he thinks. Forgive me.

 

               

 

In Purgatory, Abbie Mills fights. Every night and every day she fights.

“I’m coming, Crane.”

The scars don’t show yet, and she knows they will soon, but she doesn’t--she  _can't_ \--stop.

Every day she fights.

**Author's Note:**

> So after watching the season finale, I got the idea for this and it just wouldn't let go. I left it reasonably open-ended... Just in case the muse drops by again... Thanks to feverishsea for giving me her thoughts!


End file.
